The sound of the ground-floor door opening and shutting reverberated up the stairwell. It was followed by irregular footsteps and labored breathing.
“Ah,” said the dean, “here comes our key bearer.”
The footsteps slowed and the breathing grew louder until at last the master of the library appeared, holding his ring of keys ahead of him. He was portly and short, his black robes accentuating his shape rather than hiding it, and wore the thickest spectacles Hecate had ever seen. He nodded in reply to the dean’s greeting, being too puffed to speak. Hecate moved aside so that he could, with a shaking hand, unlock the door and push it open. The three trooped into the room.
To a newcomer, the importance of their surroundings might not have been immediately apparent. It was, of course, a handsomely built, robust space, with thought having been given to light and care taken with its construction. There were three generous, rose-shaped windows with fine stone and iron tracery, two on the east wall, one on the north, allowing the best illumination for close work in natural light. The ceiling was sufficiently high to house tall shelves and allow air to circulate, but not so lofty as to be overly grand nor to waste heat through the winter months. The two inner walls were paneled with dark wood, matching the broad, smooth boards of the floor. Aside from several chests and trunks, and two desks by the windows, all available space was taken up by book-filled shelves. Row upon row of them stood, straight backed and strong, facing forward, a regiment of knowledge and wisdom.
On closer inspection, visitors would notice the large metal locks at the end of each shelf, and see that there were iron chains attached to them. These chains, with links too heavy to be easily breached yet smooth enough and slender enough not to harm the books, ran the lengths of the shelves, weaving in and out to pass down the spinal columns of each volume, tethering them to the cases. For hundreds of years, those same chains and shelves had ensured the safety of the individual books and the preservation of the collection. Withstanding fire, war, flood, revolution, and even the rending of the cathedral’s faith itself, the library had survived.
Hecate breathed in the faint but distinctive smell of parchment and leather and linseed oil and glue. It seemed to her that they were the scent of a living thing. As if the collection were a mythological creature, its beating heart the words and wisdom and stories it held. She had been in the room only twice before but the feel of it was imprinted on her memory. Her mother might see a library as a dull place for a young woman to spend her time. She could not disagree more, for she had inherited her father’s thirst for knowledge, his curious mind, his love of puzzles and mysteries, and here were all those things in abundance, waiting for her to discover them.
Reverend Thomas had caught his breath sufficiently to apologize. “Forgive my tardiness, Dean. I was detained by Mrs. White who had much to say on the subject of the extra work she is required to do because of the current renovations. Why she thought the matter my concern I cannot fathom,” he said, pushing his wire-framed glasses back into position, as they had a habit of sliding down his nose.
The dean explained to Hecate, “Mrs. White has been cleaning the cathedral for many years and does an exemplary job. When there is work undertaken to the fabric of the building it does, alas, increase her burden.”
“Father told me the renovations may continue a while yet,” she said.
“Indeed. The major stonework is nearly completed, which should pacify Mrs. White, for I believe it is the dust she rails against. The stained-glass windows, however, will require many months’ further restoration. And restoration is something you will learn about here, is that not so, Reverend?”
The librarian looked at his new recruit with ill-concealed skepticism.
“There are many duties required of an assistant here that must be mastered before the delicate and skilled work of restoration can be attempted,” he cautioned.
“Of course, and I am certain you will find Miss Cavendish a willing pupil and a great asset. Now, I must away for a meeting with the bishop. Hecate, my dear, I leave you in the capable care of Reverend Thomas. Please give my regards to your father.”
So saying he swept out of the room, one hand already hitching up his robe to ensure a safe descent of the steep stairs.
Hecate turned and gave her new employer her brightest smile. “I would like to say once again how very grateful I am for this opportunity—”
He held up a hand. “There is no necessity to repeat yourself, Miss Cavendish. Now, I will show you what you need to see and tell you what you need to know. I do not anticipate that you will retain everything, so please feel at liberty to make notes.” Without waiting for a response he began walking briskly, if unevenly, along the rows of bookshelves.
Hecate scurried after him. She reached into her coat pocket and took out her leather-bound notebook and plucked the attached pencil from its slot in the spine of the book. A Christmas present from her brother, she found it invaluable for jotting down thoughts and discoveries and was rarely without it.
“The chained collection is not arranged alphabetically but in order of age,” he began, “which provides a more coherent system. At the end of each case you will see indices so that specific volumes may be easily located on the shelves. These are the very oldest tomes in the library,” he told her, not stopping but waving a plump hand, “and most are not bound, but are loose leaves collected within a cover, you will discover more on this matter later.” They reached the end of the row and doubled back along the next. “Mostly here you will find leather-bound books from the fourteenth century, many ecclesiastical in their subject matter, but the greater number being city records, muniments, and suchlike, with some works of poetry.…” He let the word hang, his tone and expression giving an indication that he did not value these items as much as others.
Hecate noted down the gist of what he was saying. More than once she opened her mouth to ask a question, but the librarian moved at a surprising speed, as if keen to have the tour done with, and was already stomping up the third row of shelves.
“These are some of the most valuable books in the collection. Bibles. Gospels. Prayer books. All with the very finest illuminated lettering and frontispieces, many with ornate endpapers.” He stopped so suddenly that Hecate nearly bumped into him. “You are familiar with these terms?” he asked, frowning.
“Oh yes, Reverend. My father—”
“Good, that will save some time at least.”
As they turned to walk along the next row, Hecate noticed an intricately carved cupboard, set upon a sturdy stone plinth, apparently secured to stone pillars on either side of it. The plinth itself was plain and of little interest, but the cabinet was a thing of striking beauty and workmanship. It was made of a red wood, burnished to a deep sheen, and decorated with inlaid mother-of-pearl and slivers of paler wood, set in concentric spheres, to mesmerizing effect. The front was reinforced with a finger plate that appeared to be made of gold, and it had across its front a bar and lock that seemed out of proportion for the size of the thing.
“Whatever can be kept in there?” she asked.
The librarian not only stopped but turned and stepped so close to Hecate it was all she could do not to move back. When he spoke his expression was particularly stern, his eyes, made enormous by the magnification of his spectacle lenses, quite fierce.
“Those books remain under lock and key at all times. No one is granted access to them.”
“No one? Then … what is the point of them being here at all?”
“The point is to render them safe!”
“Are they of such great value?”
“They are not the concern of a librarian’s assistant,” was all he would say further. He continued his progress along the bookcases.
Hecate could no longer resist a lingering look at the mysterious cabinet. She made herself a silent promise to discover precisely what it housed. If the master of the library would not tell her, perhaps her father could shed some light on the matter.
The short tour continued, and Hecate’s attention was refocused on the increasingly beautiful and interesting books that she glimpsed. She hastily scribbled notes, partly so as not to have to ask her employer to repeat himself, but also as an aide-mémoire in regard to the locations of the most fascinating tomes and volumes. With so many housed in the collection, she wanted to design her own system of reading and familiarizing herself with what was now, in part, her responsibility. She felt anew the thrill of being permitted to work with something so ancient and so wonderful, and reached out to touch the warm, worn leather of an enormous book on the architecture of modern Europe, where modern referred to the late eighteenth century. She was forced to trot to catch up with Reverend Thomas. As she rounded the end of another bookcase she had the feeling someone else had entered the room. Looking back, she saw an elderly man, wearing the pale gray robes of a monk rather than the darker ones of a vicar, apparently scanning a high shelf for a particular book. As if sensing he was being watched, he turned and met her gaze. On seeing her, his aged, round face was lit up by a bright smile. She smiled back.
“Miss Cavendish!” The reverend’s tone caused her to jump. “If you could attend we will complete our business much more swiftly. We have a deal of information to cover and you have yet to see the list of duties I have drawn up. These do not include gazing into space.”
“Sorry, Reverend, forgive me,” she said, following as he led her over to a desk beneath the second of the enormous rose windows. When she glanced back, the monk had moved out of sight.
“This will be your place of work. It must be kept clean and tidy. No drinks or food of any kind are to be consumed at your desk. You will, once adequately trained, be engaged in the cleaning and repair of valuable manuscripts, books, documents, and maps. A clean surface on which to work is vital.”
“Yes, I see. Of course.”
“Aside from natural light, we have gasoliers fitted, but you will no doubt have need of a lamp for intricate work. See that it is kept away from varnishes and suchlike…”
Hecate was dimly aware that the librarian was still speaking and knew that she should be paying attention and making more notes. Instead, she found herself irresistibly drawn to what was on the wall behind him. She knew a great deal about the Mappa Mundi, but she had never laid eyes on it before. Due to the restoration work taking place in the cathedral it had been removed from the south aisle and crated for some time. Now it sat in its original plain wooden frame, hanging on the wall of the library, its temporary home, only feet from Hecate’s own desk.
The layout of the map would be curious to those unfamiliar with it. They might think it drawn from a limited knowledge of the geography of the world and a poor understanding of topography. This was no mere record of a landscape, however. Rather than an aid to navigation of the world, it was an aid to navigation of beliefs and legends, histories and peoples. It was an illustration of the way medieval people understood life and death. Not a map of places but a map of thoughts. A map of the mind. A way to make sense of the philosophies and ideas that people held centuries earlier. While Reverend Thomas rattled through a list of duties, Hecate stepped quietly closer to the map to study its marvelous detail. The images upon it were simply drawn but were so many and so varied that the whole became an intricate and beautiful depiction of lost tribes and mythological creatures standing among Christian saints and angels, beside strange beasts, mighty rivers, citadels, and mountains. She found herself wondering about the mapmaker’s choices. How had he decided what to include and what to leave out? She understood why, particularly given the belief system of the medieval age in which he was working, Christ was seated at the top, a supreme benevolent overseer to all that was laid out beneath him. Similarly, the angels sorting saints from sinners was no surprise, and she had listened to lengthy discussions between her father and the dean on the subject. That the great cities of the world were often represented by images of their religious houses fitted this sensibility, too. In this way, Hereford was depicted by a simple drawing of the very building in which the map resided. She was moved by the fact that the image was somewhat smudged, having been touched by pilgrims come to see it over centuries, unable to resist reaching out to it with their faithful fingers. Less expected were the many strange creatures shown entirely out of scale, so that the fire-breathing bull was as big as the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, and the manticore was as tall as the elephant. What reasons did the cartographer have for giving space on the map to these beasts of legend? One in particular delighted her. The Latin inscription beside the animal was hard to read, but Hecate was familiar with this mythical being from descriptions she had read in her father’s books. It was unmistakably a griffin, with its eagle’s beak, wings, and talons, and the ears, haunches, and tail of a lion. She found herself drawn to it, and raised her hand, tempted to touch it, half expecting its feathers to be both soft and warm. The more she gazed at the creature, the more she had the sensation that the reverend’s voice was fading, as if he were moving far away. His words were replaced by a breathy sound, like a breeze moving through dry grasses or disturbing the leaves of a poplar tree. The urge to touch the map as those many pilgrims had done became overwhelming.
“Miss Cavendish!” Reverend Thomas barked at her. “Kindly do me the courtesy of listening to what I have to tell you.”
